Update: The trailer for 'The Green Hornet' and tonight's episode will air tomorrow night, including the laptop interview Seth Rogen did with Jimmy Kimmel. The trailer debuted online at 12:45AM ET. Watch it after the jump!

Well, this has never happened before. I'm typing this story in the dark. Literally. Let me explain. I was part of a group of journalists who got to check out the trailer for 'The Green Hornet' before it debuts on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' tonight. And I'm about to tell you what I saw. But while we were backstage, chatting with Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry, the power went down. At first, we were told that there would be a delay in filming. Then, while we were discussing 'Toy Story 3' with Rogen, the lights literally went out. It's the first time this has happened in 'Kimmel' history. Looks like they're going to be taping the show from his laptop. This is one you're going to want to watch!

Considering the less-than-stellar press the film has been getting, I wasn't expecting to love the trailer, but it was fantastic. One of my major issues with films based on lesser known comic book characters is that the general public knows very little and rarely gets on board until late in the film. And some of the studios commit the same sin as the geek community. They throw in too many obscure references and rely on the fan base to sell the film. What this trailer did was introduce the story and the characters in a easy to understand way and threw in enough action to perk my ears right up. Continue reading after the jump.Update: The trailer for 'The Green Hornet' and tonight's episode will air tomorrow night, including the laptop interview Seth Rogen did with Jimmy Kimmel. The trailer debuted online at 12:45AM ET. Watch it below.

Well, this has never happened before. I'm typing this story in the dark. Literally. Let me explain. I was part of a group of journalists who got to check out the trailer for 'The Green Hornet' before it debuts on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' tonight. And I'm about to tell you what I saw. But while we were backstage, chatting with Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry, the power went down. At first, we were told that there would be a delay in filming. Then, while we were discussing 'Toy Story 3' with Rogen, the lights literally went out. It's the first time this has happened in 'Kimmel' history. Looks like they're going to taping the show from his laptop. This is one you're going to want to watch!

Considering the less-than-stellar press the film has been getting, I wasn't expecting to love the trailer, but it was fantastic. One of my major issues with films based on lesser known comic book characters is that the general public knows very little and rarely gets on board until late in the film. And some of the studios commit the same sin as the geek community. They throw in too many obscure references and rely on the fan base to sell the film. What this trailer did was introduce the story and the characters in a easy-to-understand way and threw in enough action to perk my ears right up.

Rogen had this to say, "There have been a lot of versions of this trailer. We were pretty involved. We watch it every step of the way. I have to acknowledge honestly that our perceptions of the movie are different sometimes to your general person who knows absolutely nothing about the movie ... We really had to keep reminding ourselves that we were presenting to people who knew nothing about the Green Hornet. And we really wanted to make sure that it portrayed the real feel of the movie more than anything."

So here is what we saw. We're introduced to party boy Brit Reed (Rogen), watching him throw a television out the window of The Standard hotel in LA. His father (Tom Wilkinson), a media mogul, chides him for his wild ways. But when his father is unexpectedly killed, something Brit sees on a television while riding in a limo, he realizes he's done nothing with his life. He meets one of his dad's employees, a man named Kato (Jay Chou), who gives him a peek into his father's life. ('He was a complex man,' he tells Brit.) Mostly by showing him a cabinet full of guns and a tricked out car -- Black Beauty. We see tantalizing glimpses of villain Christoph Waltz (and anything I see of him is tantalizing) and his band of evil henchmen. Brit and Kato decide to team up to fight crime with this arsenal, posing as villains. In one of the funnier lines in the trailer, Brit says, "I want you to take my hand and come with me on this adventure." Kato replies, "I'll go with you, but I don't want to touch you."

Chou has amazing comic timing. And considering that the man was learning English as he was filming, that's pretty amazing. After the trailer, we got to do a Q&A with Rogen, Gondry and producers Neil Moritz and Evan Goldberg, which I'll post those as soon as I'm back in the light. They told us that star Cameron Diaz showed up on her days off to teach him English!

We catch a glimpse of Black Beauty's front mounted guns and suicide doors, and hear Brit call Kato a Swiss Army Knife, telling him that every time you think you've seen all the cool gadgets, he comes up with another one. As they run a red light and get caught by a camera, Kato shoots a missile to take it out. Someone please hook one of those up to my Honda! We even got a glimpse of a scene I was lucky enough to see on the set -- Black Beauty crashing through an entire floor of an office building.

The trailer was just plain fun to watch. And the 'Green Hornet' isn't exactly 'The Dark Knight.' It's supposed to be fun. And whatever you think of Gondry, his style is certainly distinctive. No matter what, the film will be visually cool. And it will be in 3D. Yes, it's post production. And yes, they all promised it will not be a 'Clash of the Titans'-style fiasco. Moritz said, "We didn't make a rash decision by any means. We saw a lot of demonstrations with a lot of different companies and then ultimately brought in a number of these companies into the editing room and then went through the film with them together and really looked at the pitfalls, positives and negatives to doing it. And kind of weighed those all out before we even approached the studio and asked them to let us turn it into 3D, which is obviously a huge financial impact. After that as well, I remember Amy Pascal said to us, 'This is going to cost a lot of extra money. Are you sure about this?' And we were, because we had done so much homework on it. And we did not want to be reprimanded like 'Clash of the Titans' was. We really wanted to take our time and do it right."

What I really took away from watching the trailer and speaking to Rogen, Gondry, Moritz and Goldberg was that this film has truly been a labor of love. Rogen told us, "It was not a movie that was going to get made no matter what. It's something we had to will into being. We had to work to make happen. If we didn't do it there would not be 'Green Hornet' movie on screen right now.' 'The Green Hornet' will be released on January 14, 2011.